


Can We Count On You To Not Break The Planet?

by sinesofinsanity



Category: Green Lantern (2011)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-29
Updated: 2012-09-29
Packaged: 2017-11-15 06:13:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/524014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinesofinsanity/pseuds/sinesofinsanity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tom's best friend is a superhero. Tom is not. He can commiserate with the best of them though.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Can We Count On You To Not Break The Planet?

**Author's Note:**

> HUGE thanks to kiki_eng for beta-ing this oddity.

Tom Kalmaku’s best friend was a superhero, an honest-to-god, glowing green, alien tech, stupid mask _superhero_. Okay, so maybe Hal had described it more as “space police”, but the guy had a skin-tight suit and saved the girl from a crashing helicopter. As far as Tom was concerned that meant “superhero”. So when Hal had called him up and said there was a problem, Tom showed. He got there. He listened to an impossible story about a xeno-biologist and a planet-destroying alien. He asked questions to clarify the game plan. He pep-talked – well, Carol pep-talked, but Tom sat nearby. He helped break down what Hal would say to the bosses of the space cops. At this rate he was practically a sidekick, not so different from his day-job then.

“So, how does this work exactly?” They’d hammered everything out and were walking onto the roof of Hal’s apartment building. Hal didn’t seem any less scared than he had earlier in the evening, but at least he looked less dejected, and less like he was going to puke.

“The ring’ll create a wormhole that’ll take me to Oa once I’m far enough into space.” Hal shrugged, then started stretching out his arms. “It’s kind of an automatic thing. Which is good ‘cause if I had to think about it I could end up anywhere in the universe.”

Tom instantly thought of how many other places in the universe he’d rather be than the planet about to be eaten or the home of the space cops. Hal would just be hopping from one to the other. “That would be bad.” He nodded.

“Hey,” Hal grinned, tossing and catching the ring before sliding it on. “Someone’s got to save the world.” This time the suit appeared instantly.

Tom rolled his eyes. “Thank god it’s you."

“Keep it pretty for me.” Hal waggled his eyebrows.

Carol appeared from the stairwell, shutting off her phone. “Alright you two, cut it out. We don’t need the old Hal back until _after_ he’s done impressing people”

“Aliens,” corrected Tom. Carol just glared at him.

“You know what to do?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Hal nodded. “Yeah, I’ll be fine. You guys though,” he glanced up at Tom, “Do me a favour? Get out of the city. And call my family, my brother Jack and my mom, tell them to get out of the city too, just for a day or two. If he’s not stopped by then, it won’t matter.”

“Wait, you mean he’s coming here? As in here specifically?”

“Parallax wants Hector, and he wants me. We’re both in Coast City. He’ll attack here first. If I’m late, or something goes wrong…”

Carol smiled, “Wow, things really have changed. Hal Jordan planning ahead, who’d have thought?”

“Alien power rings are more believable,” joked Tom, but he nodded when Hal looked at him. “I’ll do it, man. I’ll call them.”

“Alright, here goes.” Hal squared his shoulders, put his fist in the air, and took off. Which, Tom had to admit, looked really cool.

“Think he’ll be okay?” Carol had moved to stand beside him, still watching the green speck that was slowly being lost to light pollution.

“Probably. He had that look he gets when he has no idea what he’s doing, but is going to do it anyway. Usually he makes it work.” Tom chewed his lip, also watching the sky. “He usually has backup, though.”

“Well then.” Carol turned and walked back to the stairs. “Let’s go back him up.”


End file.
